SEO Basics: What is Orphaned Content? How does Orphaned Content affect SEO?

SEO Basics: What is Orphaned Content? How does Orphaned Content affect SEO?

By: Radhika Gupta

How does Search Engine Optimization (SEO) work in Orphaned content? Orphaned content is a piece of content with no links from other pages or posts from the same website. As a result, the page is difficult to find for both the search engine and visitors on the website. Any page or post on a website needs to get internal links to fit in the website’s site structure and fulfill its purpose.

Google uses links to reach every content on the web. As a result, Google does not know about the page. The page or content sits on your website without serving any purpose. On the other hand, a piece of content with contextual links increases visibility. It is also SEO optimized. It is simple to understand but challenging to follow for companies producing a large number of online content.

You should remember that even if your page in linked with the home page but does not contain text links, it is still orphaned content. If you make sure each post or page has contextual links; then your website will be free of orphaned content. Contextual links offer context to both Google and viewers, adding value to the content and site.

Why is Orphaned content bad for SEO? The answer is simple because google does not know that the page exists. In a situation where every website is competing for increased visibility and SERPs, you have orphaned content with no contextual links.

It is a waste of resources when an excellent article and post is lying unseen and unindexed in your Company’s website. Also, when Google finds a ‘non-quality page’ on your website, your Google rankings could suffer.

For instance, if you keep posting a lot of blogs on your home page without contextual links, Google may miss indexing your previous blog posts when random new posts appear. So, your old posts might disappear with no visibility on search engines. Yes, you might get some traffic for the blog post but not adding value to the website.

The bottom line is that you should have a good linking structure in sync with your site structure so that you can make use of all content resources published on your website. Make sure you add contextual links to your quality articles and posts that can add value to your site and also serve the purpose of SEO optimization.